A Final Farewell To Day Care

FORT LAUDERDALE — As the boys in blue and girls in pink sang about letting their little light shine, the irony was plain.

The early childhood education program from which some of the children were graduating won't be around next year. That light is being extinguished.

For about 30 years the program has been around in some form at Dillard High, said teacher Susan Barbera. Now it is closing. Everyone benefited, supporters said. The guardians got affordable, convenient daycare. The children were taught in a loving, stable environment -- staff has been involved in the program an average of 11 years. And high school students learned about teaching and childcare right there on campus. Plus, they earned certificates that paved the way to careers in childcare. "For the last 12 years, it's been my life," Barbera said.

"I'm extremely disappointed, she said, pausing to hold back the tears. "It's a very important program. Child-care centers need people with training to work with young children. Those are the most important years of their lives."

The program began under the supervision of the Broward Employment and Training Administration and evolved into what it is today. High school students help Barbera, an aide and a teacher's assistant take care of children from the community and the children or grandchildren of high school staff. For every stage of the program students complete, they become certified to work as teacher's aides, assistants or pre-school teachers.

While parents say the center is being closed to make the school more appealing to magnet students and to create room for a new performing arts center, principal Deborah Stubbs said the real reason is that the program is no longer cost-effective."We don't have enough [high school] students enrolled," Stubbs said. "I regret that the program is closing. It's a good program. It's just sad that we don't have enough students to run the program."

For the program to make financial sense, 165 Dillard students per day must be enrolled, she said. Dell Sharoon, a program teacher's aide said enrollment is at 110.

Jacqueline Kennedy-Jordan said her daughter Diandra is aware her school is closing. The 3-year-old tried to get money from her mother to help keep it open. Her daughter loves the program so much, Kennedy-Jordan said, that she wakes her up on weekends asking to go to school.

"For them to come and uproot it without the community having a say is unforgiveable," she said.

At graduation, the children recited nursery rhymes, sang songs, danced, and performed an instrumental selection. All 22 students took the stage, but only six were old enough to graduate. They will go on to first grade. The rest must find another pre-school.

Parents testified to the advances their children have made because of the program and how excited they are about learning.

Tamar Davis, a 1995 graduate of the program has had her daughter Asia, 4, enrolled for two years.

"I'm not sure what to do next year," she said. "It's a good program. It's helped the community a lot.

"Childcare is a growing business," said Davis, who parlayed what she learned in the program into a job as a teacher's assistant at Wingate Oaks Center in Fort Lauderdale. "We do use those certificates."

Parents and their children are not the only ones already missing the program.

"I enjoy working with the kids," said sophomore Alvin Habersham, 16, who is finishing up his first year in the program and wants to become a teacher.

"They were saying they could bus us to vocational school," Habersham said. "Why bus us, when the program is already here?"

Retired Dillard High teacher Nathaniel Reed was on campus Thursday. He sees the closing as a bigger problem with vocational education at the high school. Other vocational courses, such as auto-body and commercial art, either have been closed or are being considered for closure, he said.

"These programs are needed in this community," he said.

The school district is forming an ad hoc vocational planning committee to assess the state of high school vocational education programs. The first committee meeting is scheduled for June 11.

Jaime Yates, 18, has been in Dillard's early-childhood education program for four years. She said her scholarship offers came as a result of participating in the program. She will study elementary education at Florida Atlantic University, where she has a scholarship that will cover 75 percent of her tuition.

"Without this program, I wouldn't have received these scholarships," Yates said. "I learned what students expect from me. It really helped me to make up my mind about teaching."

Christine Walker can be reached at cwalker@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4550.